Search results for ""profile books""

'It made me rethink the roots of our deepest fears and insecurities, and why we often disappoint ourselves in how we manifest them' Bill Clinton, Guardian Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the 'why' of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. The book argues that human civilisation is a defence against the knowledge that we are mortal beings. Becker states that humans live in both the physical world and a symbolic world of meaning, which is where our 'immortality project' resides. We create in order to become immortal - to become part of something we believe will last forever. In this way we hope to give our lives meaning. In The Denial of Death, Becker sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates decades after it was written.

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'There are some fantastic books out there that men should read ... It really worked' Coleen Nolan, ITV's Loose Women Did you know that the clitoris has 8000 nerve endings, twice as many as the penis? Here is everything you've wondered about the female orgasm and how to make it happen. A witty, well-researched and revealing guide to giving your lover an orgasm every time. More than just foreplay, Ian Kerner argues that oral sex is the key to a great sex life for both partners. Short sections cover philosophy, technique, step-by-step instructions and detailed anatomical information, essential to both beginners and experienced lovers. 'It's time to close the sex gap and create a level playing field in the exchange of pleasure, and cunnilingus is far more than just a means for achieving this noble end; it's the cornerstone of a new sexual paradigm, one that exuberantly extols a shared experience of pleasure, intimacy, respect and contentment. It's also one of the greatest gifts of love a man can bestow upon a woman.' Ian Kerner

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"Compulsively readable laugh out loud history." Mary Roach Bomb-carrying bats. Poisoned flower arrangements. Cigars laced with mind-altering drugs. Listening devices implanted into specially-trained cats. A torpedo-proof aircraft carrier made out of ice and sawdust. And a CIA plan to detonate a nuclear bomb on the moon ... just because. In Nuking the Moon, Vince Houghton, Historian and Curator at the International Spy Museum, collects the most inspired, implausible and downright bizarre military intelligence schemes that never quite made it off the drawing board. From the grandly ambitious to the truly devious, they illuminate a new side of warfare, revealing how a combination of desperation and innovation led not only to daring missions and brilliant technological advances, but to countless plans and experiments that failed spectacularly. Alternatively terrifying and hilarious, and combining archival research with newly-conducted interviews, these twenty-six chapters reveal not only what might have happened, but also what each one tells us about the history and people around it. If 'military intelligence' makes you think of James Bond and ingenious exploding gadgets ... get ready for the true story.

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The cathedral church of Christ in Oxford - better known as Christ Church Cathedral - was established in 1546. It forms one half of Christ Church, the unique joint foundation of cathedral and university college created by King Henry VIII. Today's cathedral occupies the site of a monastery founded in the late seventh century by Frideswide, patron saint of Oxford and its university. In the early twelfth century it was re-founded as an Augustinian priory, and 400 years later it met its nemesis in Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, whose plan for an Oxford college grander than any other caused its dissolution. But when the cardinal fell from royal favour, the priory church was saved. The King's Cathedral is the first account of the convent, priory and cathedral for nearly a century. Judith Curthoys - author of two previous volumes on Christ Church - has drawn widely on scholarly research into the cathedral's archaeology, architecture and history for her fascinating and accessible new study of this historic building.

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The #1 New York Times Bestseller that shows why slowing down is the key to getting ahead 'Choose the focused inner stillness that Ryan champions' - Mark Manson #1 Bestselling author The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck 'Some authors give advice. Ryan Holiday distills wisdom. This book is a must read.' Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author, Digital Minimalism 'A life-changing idea: that in order to move forward, we must learn to be still.' - Sophia Amoruso, cofounder and CEO, Girlboss Throughout history, there has been one quality that great leaders, makers, artists and fighters have shared. The Zen Buddhists described it as inner peace, the Stoics called it ataraxia and Ryan Holiday calls it stillness: the ability to be steady, focused and calm in a constantly busy world. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, Holiday shows us how crucial stillness is, and how it can be cultivated in our own lives today. Just as Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey and baseball player Sadaharu Oh have done, we can all benefit from stillness to feed into our greater ambitions - whether building a business or simply finding happiness, peace and self-direction. Stillness is the key to the self-mastery, discipline and focus necessary to succeed in this competitive, noisy world.

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Recently, fake news has become real news, making headlines as its consequences become crushingly obvious in political upsets and global turmoil. But it's not new - you've seen it all before. A malicious online rumour costs a company millions. Politically motivated 'fake news' stories are planted and disseminated to influence elections. Some product or celebrity zooms from total obscurity to viral sensation. Anonymous sources and speculation become national conversation. What you don't know is that someone is responsible for all this. Usually, someone like Ryan Holiday: a media manipulator. Holiday wrote this book to explain how media manipulators work, how to spot their fingerprints, how to fight them, and how (if you must) to emulate their tactics. Why is he giving away these secrets? Because he's tired of a world where trolls hijack debates, marketers help write the news, reckless journalists spread lies, and no one is accountable for any of it. He's pulling back the curtain because it's time everyone understands how things really work.

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'Scintillating ... thought-provoking ... one of the very best of the great crop of recent books on the subject.' Andrew Rawnsley, Observer Democracy has died hundreds of times, all over the world. We think we know what that looks like: chaos descends and the military arrives to restore order, until the people can be trusted to look after their own affairs again. However, there is a danger that this picture is out of date. Until very recently, most citizens of Western democracies would have imagined that the end was a long way off, and very few would have thought it might be happening before their eyes as Trump, Brexit and paranoid populism have become a reality. David Runciman, one of the UK's leading professors of politics, answers all this and more as he surveys the political landscape of the West, helping us to spot the new signs of a collapsing democracy and advising us on what could come next.

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Christmas Eve. While the world sleeps, snow falls gently from the sky, presents lie under the tree ... and murder is afoot. In this collection of ten classic murder mysteries by the best crime writers from the 1920s to today, death and mayhem take many festive forms, from the inventive to the unexpected. From a Santa Claus with a grudge to a cat who knows who killed its owner on Christmas Eve, these are stories to enjoy - and be mystified by - in front of a roaring fire, mince pie in hand.

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Recommended on The Rest is Politics and Empire 'A masterly engagement with the most delicate and important of subjects - filled with gentle empathy, learning and rare balance' Rory Stewart 'Rogerson is an original - eloquent and always fascinating' William Dalrymple 'Brilliant' Anita Anand 'This is not a book to be ignored' The Times At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his son Ali, and the slaughter of Ali's own son Husayn at Kerbala. These events, known to every Muslim, have created a slender faultline in the Middle East. The House Divided follows these narratives from the first Sunni and Shia caliphates, through the medieval caliphates and empires of the Arabs, Persians and Ottomans, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a complex range of identities and rivalries - religious, ethnic and national - have shaped the region, jolted by the seismic shift of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Rogerson's original approach takes the modern chessboard of nation states and looks at each through its particular history of empires and occupiers, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams. The result is a book of wide-ranging empathy, understanding and insights.

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From storytelling phenomenon The Moth: a collection about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best stories ever told on their stages. All These Wonders features The Moth's customary variety of voices. Storytellers range from Suzi Ronson (who styled David Bowie's hair into Ziggy Stardust) to author Jung Chang, by way of a hip hop 'one hit wonder', an astronomer gazing at the surface of Pluto for the first time and a young female spy-tester in World War II. They share their ventures into uncharted territory - and how their lives were changed forever by what they found there. These true stories have been carefully selected and adapted to the page by the creative minds at The Moth, and encompass the very best of the 17,000+ stories performed in live Moth shows around the world. Filled with a variety of humourous, moving, and gripping tales from all walks of life, it is timed to celebrate the Moth's 20th anniversary year.

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Winner of the 2015 Man Booker International Prize War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carried along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almost mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town's archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war. Korim is determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity by typing it all out onto the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive realism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and mysterious beauty. Following the eight chapters of War & War is a short 'prequel acting as a sequel', 'Isaiah', which brings us to a dark bar, years before in Hungary, where Korim rants against the world and threatens suicide. Written like nothing else (turning single sentences into chapters), War & War affirms W. G. Sebald's comment that Krasznahorkai's prose far surpasses all the lesser concerns of contemporary writing.

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The essence and success of The Tao of Coaching has always been its focus on the practical tips and techniques for making work more rewarding through the habit of coaching - and this philosophy continues to underpin this brand new reissue. The book's premise is simple: that to become an effective coach, managers and leaders need master only a few techniques, even though mastery obviously requires practice. Each chapter focuses on a specific technique - or Golden Rule - of coaching to help practice make perfect. Tried and tested by generations within and beyond the workplace, this succinct and engaging book gives readers the tools to: - create more time for themselves, by delegating well - build, and enjoy working with, effective teams - achieve better results - enhance their interpersonal skills. It demonstrates that coaching is not simply a matter of helping others and improving performance, but is also a powerful force for self-development and personal fulfilment.

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Thor Bjorgolfsson is a self-styled adventure capitalist with an addiction to debt and an insatiable appetite for business deals who became Iceland's first billionaire. After 10 years establishing his financial empire with alco-pops and beer in the lawless 'Wild East' of newly-capitalist Russia in the 1990s, he moved on to merging, floating, spinning off and privatising businesses from Finland to Sweden, Poland, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and the Czech Republic. On his 40th birthday, and worth $3.5 billion, he was sitting on top of the world; only 250 people in it were richer than him. His most spectacular triumph was the takeover of Iceland's second-largest bank, Landsbanki - he had expected his investment's value to double or treble in four years, and instead it rose ten-fold. But when financial meltdown hit Iceland in October 2008, Landsbanki crashed and burned, taking Bjorgolfsson with it. Within 12 months he had lost 3.3 billion euros - 98.5% of his wealth - and was treated as a scapegoat in his native country for supposedly bringing about the disaster. Faced with appalling debts, Bjorgolfsson has made good on his promises to repay his creditors, and at the age of 47 is now a billionaire once again.

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Ideas in Profile: Small Introductions to Big Topics At the heart of criticism lies one question: What do you think of it? Every time we comment on an artefact, whether a poem, a play, a painting, a novel or a piano concerto, we are acting as critics, making our own judgements and interpretations. Among the most fundamental of human intellectual activities, criticism offers a starting point for many of our journeys towards understanding. Focusing particularly on stories, plays and poems, Criticism traces the central concepts and controversies in criticism, from Plato to Derrida, and from Romanticism to the death of the author. In the process, it reflects on criticism itself, the possibilities and options that confront casual readers, as well as reviewers, members of reading groups, students and teachers of English. How far do we make conscious choices about how and what we read (or view)? What do we conventionally look for in fiction? And what might we look for if we went beyond the conventional?

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Over twenty years Wilhelm Reich, a psychologist and doctor of medicine, studied the relationship between the emotional, physiological and physical functions of biological energy. He saw the orgasm as the key to the body's energy metabolism, discovering that the biological emotions governing the psychic processes are themselves the immediate expression of strictly physical energy - which he named the cosmic orgone. Initially derided, Reich's theories are now seen as crucial to our understanding of ourselves and our fellow men. In appreciating why the orgasm brings a feeling of physical and emotional well-being, we can also gain insight into the physical and emotional ills that result from a thwarting of this bioenergetic function. Many researches into psychic energy believe that the aura recorded by Kirlian photography is nothing less than the manifestation of Reich's orgone energy.

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This is the story of Isak, a worker of the land, with its roots in man's deepest myths about the struggle to cultivate the land and make it fertile. Sweeping and panoramic, the story moves at the pace of the passing seasons and with the growth of the crops on which the characters' lives depend. Hamsun's themes of individual freedom, and the fundamental human need to reconcile man with the natural world, speak even more resonantly than when the novel was first published.

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The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are explores an unrecognised but mighty taboo - our tacit conspiracy to ignore who, or what, we really are. Alan Watts, key thinker of Western Zen Buddhism, explains how to reconsider our relationship with the world. We are in urgent need of a sense of our own existence, which is in accord with the physical facts and which overcomes our feeling of alienation from the universe. In The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Alan Watts asks what causes the illusion of the self as a separate ego which confronts a universe of physical objects that are alien to it. Rather, a person's identity binds them to the physical universe, creating a relationship with their environment and other people. The separation of the self and the physical world leads to the misuse of technology and the attempt to violently subjugate man's natural environment, leading to its destruction. Watts urges against the idea that we are separate from the world. Nowhere is this idea more apparent than in the concept of cultural taboos. The biggest taboo of all is knowing who we really are behind the mask of our self as presented to the world. Through our focus on ourselves and the world as it affects us, we have developed narrowed perception. Alan Watts tells us how to open our eyes and see ourselves not as coming into the world but from it. In understanding the individual's real place in the universe, Watts presents a critique of Western culture and a healing alternative.

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* THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER Karz, a modern-day Genghis Khan, is assembling an army of mercenaries in a hidden valley in the Hindu Kush Mountains. His objective: the invasion and occupation of oil-rich Kuwait. But he lacks a couple of top lieutenants, and his gaze falls on Modesty Blaise and her loyal companion Willie Garvin, even though he knows they are not for hire. Meanwhile, Sir Gerald Tarrant, who runs a secret service organisation under the British government, has noticed that many mercenaries are being recruited by some unknown employer and disappearing. This worries Sir Gerald, and he asks Modesty and Willie to investigate. When Karz kidnaps Lucille (a child dear to Modesty and Willie), and commands them to report for duty, the adventurers have no choice. They must travel to the isolated valley and find a way to prevent an invasion that will change the world.

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* THE THIRD NOVEL IN THE BESTSELLING MODESTY BLAISE SERIES * 'The finest escapist thrillers ever written' THE TIMES 'Before Buffy, before Charlie's Angels, before Purdy and Emma Peel, there was Modesty Blaise' OBSERVER Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are in Paris. Modesty is being wined and dined by René Vaubois, head of the French Intelligence Service, on a floating restaurant on the Seine. René asks Modesty for advice regarding a new protection racket. High-level people worldwide are receiving death threats, and those who don't pay end up dead. By what means are the victims being killed? How is the ransom money being collected without trace? Then Modesty's friend, Steve Collier, the renowned psychic researcher, is kidnapped. Modesty and her faithful lieutenant, Willie Garvin, must travel to a remote island stronghold to solve the mystery and save their friend.

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A Washington Post 2021 Non-Fiction Book of the Year New York Times Review of Books Editors' Choice Non-Fiction Title Longlisted for the 2022 PEN / Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography 'Beautifully told. It is high time Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Aurora Leigh were once again household names.' Mail on Sunday 'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,' Elizabeth Barrett Browning famously wrote, shortly before defying her family by running away to Italy with Robert Browning. But behind the romance of her extraordinary life stands a thoroughly modern figure, who remains an electrifying study in self-invention. Elizabeth was born in 1806, a time when women could neither attend university nor vote, and yet she achieved lasting literary fame. She remains Britain's greatest woman poet, whose work has inspired writers from Emily Dickinson to George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. This vividly written biography, the first full study for over thirty years, incorporates recent archival discoveries to reveal the woman herself: a literary giant and a high-profile activist for the abolition of slavery who believed herself to be of mixed heritage; and a writer who defied chronic illness and long-term disability to change the course of cultural history. It holds up a mirror to the woman, her art - and the art of biography itself.

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'He writes so engagingly that it's hard to imagine that actual foraging can be more attractive than reading his accounts of it. ...[This book] is a treasure. It is beautifully produced, designed and illustrated.' - John Carey, The Sunday Times WINNER OF THE GUILD OF FOOD WRITERS AWARD FOR FOOD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 WINNER OF WOODLANDS AWARDS BEST WOODLAND BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020 Look out of your window, walk down a country path or go to the beach in Great Britain, and you are sure to see many wild species that you can take home and eat. From dandelions in spring to sloe berries in autumn, via wild garlic, samphire, chanterelles and even grasshoppers, our countryside is full of edible delights in any season. John Wright is the country's foremost expert in foraging and brings decades of experience, including as forager at the River Cottage, to this seasonal guide. Month by month, he shows us what species can be found and where, how to identify them, and how to store, use and cook them. You'll learn the stories behind the Latin names, the best way to tap a Birch tree, and how to fry an ant, make rosehip syrup and cook a hop omelette. Fully illustrated throughout, with tips on kit, conservation advice and what to avoid, this is an indispensable guide for everyone interested in wild food, whether you want to explore the great outdoors, or are happiest foraging from your armchair.

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President Obama's and President Biden's appointment as US Surgeon General 'The most important book you'll read this year' Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive 'Fascinating, moving and essential reading' - Atul Gawande 'This book is a gift for us all.' - Susan Cain, author, Quiet The world seems more connected than ever, and yet even before the world went into lockdown, loneliness was at epidemic levels. But what effect is it having on us, and how can we treat it - even at a distance? Murthy's prescient book reveals the importance of human connection, the hidden impact of loneliness on our health, and the social power of community. When Obama appointed him Surgeon General of the United States, Dr Vivek Murthy observed the growing health crisis of isolation first-hand. In this ground-breaking book, he traces the roots of the problem, and shows how loneliness lies behind some of our greatest personal and social challenges, from anxiety and depression to addiction and violence. But he also reveals the cure. His search led him to talk to doctors, scientists, parents and community members around the world. The solutions are deceptively simple and easily applicable - and the effects are transformative. And one thing is clear: real human connection is a medical necessity if we want to stay healthy, emotionally and physically. We can all create it, and benefit from it, and it is more urgent than ever that we start now.

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How Bad Are Bananas? was a groundbreaking book when first published in 2009, when most of us were hearing the phrase 'carbon footprint' for the first time. Mike Berners-Lee set out to inform us what was important (aviation, heating, swimming pools) and what made very little difference (bananas, naturally packaged, are good!). This new edition updates all the figures (from data centres to hosting a World Cup) and introduces many areas that have become a regular part of modern life - Twitter, the Cloud, Bitcoin, electric bikes and cars, even space tourism. Berners-Lee runs a considered eye over each area and gives us the figures to manage and reduce our own carbon footprint, as well as to lobby our companies, businesses and government. His findings, presented in clear and even entertaining prose, are often surprising. And they are essential if we are to address climate change.

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An anthropologist looks at our modern world - and shows how we can build a better, more connected one Increasingly, we are coming to see difference, whether in the form of conflicting values or growing ethnic diversity, as an existential threat. Within much of the world, our main response has been to surround ourselves with like-minded people and double down on our own convictions, in an attempt to hold difference at bay. So, how did we get here, and what can we do about it? Here, anthropologist Farhan Samanani combines case studies from across the world with his own research to provide insights into the capacity of humankind to connect across divides. Using his anthropologist's toolkit, he explores the roots of our present tensions and casts fresh light on how we can cultivate common ground, build healthy communities and not just live but flourish together.

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'Mind-inflating' Wired 'A grand vision of the marvels we've discovered, and the immensity of what we still don't understand' Sunday Times What if the ancient Greeks were right, and the universe really did spring into being out of chaos and the void? How could we know? And what must its first moments have been like? To answer these questions, scientists are delving into all the hidden crevices of creation. Armed with giant telescopes and powerful particle accelerators, they probe the subtle mechanisms by which our familiar world came to be, and try to foretell the manner in which it will end. The result of all this collective effort is a complex tale, stranger at times than even our most ancient creation myths. Yet its building blocks give us the power to work marvels our predecessors could scarcely comprehend. In Genesis, the CERN physicist and bestselling author Guido Tonelli does poetic justice to that great story, the accomplishment of countless minds working together across the ages.

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'The Web of Meaning is both a profound personal meditation on human existence and a tour-de-force weaving together of historic and contemporary world-wide secular and spiritual thought on the deepest question of all: why are we here?' Gabor Maté M.D., author, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction 'We need, now more than ever, to figure out how to make all kinds of connections. This book can help--and therefore it can help with a lot of the urgent tasks we face.' Bill McKibben, author, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? As our civilization careens towards a precipice of climate breakdown, ecological destruction and gaping inequality, people are losing their existential moorings. Our dominant worldview of disconnection, which tells us we are split between mind and body, separate from each other, and at odds with the natural world, has passed its expiration date. Yet another world is possible. Award-winning author, Jeremy Lent, investigates humanity's age-old questions - who am I? why am I? how should I live? - from a fresh perspective, weaving together findings from modern systems thinking, evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience with insights from Buddhism, Taoism and indigenous wisdom. The result is a breathtaking accomplishment: a rich, coherent worldview based on a deep recognition of connectedness within ourselves, between each other, and with the entire natural world.

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With a new introduction on the Ukraine crisis LONGLISTED FOR THE FINANCIAL TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 A TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 A DAILY MAIL BEST CURRENT AFFAIRS BOOK OF 2022 A DAILY MIRROR BEST NON-FICTION BOOK OF 2022 A SPECTATOR BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 PRESENTER OF THE BBC RADIO 4 SERIES 'HOW TO STEAL A TRILLION' A WATERSTONES BEST POLITICS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 AN IRISH TIMES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 A MANAGEMENT TODAY BEST LEADERSHIP BOOK OF 2022 How did Britain become the servant of the world's most powerful and corrupt men? From accepting multi-million pound tips from Russian oligarchs, to the offshore tax havens, meet Butler Britain... In his Sunday Times-bestselling expose, Oliver Bullough reveals how the UK took up its position at the elbow of the worst people on Earth: the oligarchs, kleptocrats and gangsters. Though the UK prides itself on values of fair play and the rule of law, few countries do more to frustrate global anti-corruption efforts. From the murky origins of tax havens and gambling centres in the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar to the influence of oligarchs in the British establishment, Butler to the World is the story of how we became a nation of Jeeveses - and how it doesn't have to be this way.

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*** THE THRILLING RICHARD & JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK *** *** THE BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK *** ***ONE OF THE TIMES BEST THRILLER BOOKS OF 2021*** *** THE TIMES NO.4 BESTSELLER *** *** THE #1 KINDLE BESTSELLER *** THE TIMES THRILLER OF THE MONTH OBSERVER THRILLER OF THE MONTH 'I haven't read anything this exciting since Gone Girl' - STEPHEN KING 'One of the most extraordinary thrillers of the year' - DAILY MAIL 'A dark, audacious highwire act of a novel' - GUARDIAN ________________________________________ This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his young daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street. All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies. An unspeakable secret binds the family together, and when a new neighbour moves in next door, the truth may destroy them all. Because there's something buried in the dark forest at the end of Needless Street. But it's not what you think... From the multiple award-winning author of Little Eve and Rawblood, this extraordinary tale will thrill and move readers. A work of incredible imagination and heartbreaking beauty. *** FILM RIGHTS OPTIONED BY IMAGINARIUM PRODUCTIONS *** *** RIGHTS SOLD IN TWENTY TERRITORIES *** ________________________________________ 'Catriona Ward is the new face of literary dark fiction' - SARAH PINBOROUGH 'Books like this don't come around too often' - JOANNE HARRIS 'Believe the hype... a masterclass' - KIRAN MILLWOOD HARGRAVE 'A chilling and beautiful masterpiece of suspense. I was completely enthralled' - JOE HILL 'A masterpiece. Beautiful, heartbreaking and quietly uplifting' - ALEX NORTH

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*** WINNER OF THE BATH NOVEL AWARD *** 'A tense, unsettling and emotionally engaging whydunnit' - SOPHIE HANNAH 'Gritty, tense, and superbly plotted' - HARRIET TYCE 'A complete triumph. an intelligent and deeply satisfying thriller' - ELIZABETH HAYNES ________________________________________ TWO BOYS LOVED HER. BUT WHICH ONE KILLED HER? On a dark night two years ago, teenagers Rob and Paige broke into a house. They beat and traumatised the occupants, then left, taking only a bracelet. No one knows why, not even Luke, Rob's younger brother and Paige's confidant. Paige disappeared after that night. And having spent her life in children's homes and the foster system, no one cared enough to look for her. Now Rob is out of prison, and probation officer Wren Reynolds has been tasked with his rehabilitation. But Wren has her own reasons for taking on Rob as a client. Convinced that Rob knows what happened to Paige, and hiding a lifetime of secrets from her heavily pregnant wife, Wren's obsession with finding a missing girl may tear her family apart... This beautiful and compelling thriller is perfect for readers of Harriet Tyce, Sophie Hannah and Lisa Jewell. ________________________________________ 'Superb. A rare combination of stunning twists and exceptional prose' - DAVID JACKSON 'Immersive and compelling, authentic and raw' - S.E. LYNES 'A mesmerising tale. One of the rising stars of crime fiction' - TREVOR WOOD

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Now with a new chapter on the end of the chumocracy era - and Oxford's upcoming elite for 2050. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER AND TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2022 Power. Privilege. Parties. It's a very small world at the top. 'Brilliant ... traces Brexit back to the debating chambers of the Oxford Union in the 1980s' James O'Brien 'A searing onslaught on the smirking Oxford insinuation that politics is all just a game. It isn't. It matters' Matthew Parris 'A sparkling firework of a book' Lynn Barber, Spectator 'Exquisite and depressing in equal measure' Matthew Syed, Sunday Times Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Cameron, George Osborne, Theresa May, Dominic Cummings, Daniel Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg: Whitehall is swarming with old Oxonians. They debated each other in tutorials, ran against each other in student elections, and attended the same balls and black tie dinners. They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them. Thirteen of the seventeen postwar British prime ministers went to Oxford University. In Chums, Simon Kuper traces how the rarefied and privileged atmosphere of this narrowest of talent pools - and the friendships and worldviews it created - shaped modern Britain. A damning look at the university clique-turned-Commons majority that will blow the doors of Westminster wide open and change the way you look at our democracy forever.

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'Bracingly intelligent ... a wonderful read' Guardian 'Incredibly timely ... presented [with] wonderful elegance and clarity' Irish Times Based on the History Of Ideas podcast series by Talking Politics host David Runciman, Confronting Leviathan explores some of the most important thinkers and prominent ideas lying behind modern politics - from Hobbes to Gandhi, from democracy to patriarchy, and from revolution to lock down. While explaining the most important and often-cited ideas of thinkers such as Constant, De Tocqueville, Marx and Engels, Hayek, MacKinnon and Fukuyama, David Runciman shows how crises - revolutions, wars, depressions, pandemics - generated these new ways of political thinking. This is a history of ideas to help make sense of what's happening today.

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THE SEQUEL TO THE MULTI-MILLION BESTSELLER DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN From the author of the world's most popular drawing instruction manual Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, this new book helps you discover a new way of drawing and problem solving. Betty Edwards reveals the role our dominant eye plays in how we perceive, create, and are seen by those around us. Research shows that much like being right-handed or left-handed, each of us has a dominant eye, corresponding to the dominant side of our brain - either verbal or perceptual. Once you learn the difference and try your hand at the simple drawing exercises, you'll gain fresh insights into how you perceive, think, and create. You'll learn how to not just look but truly see. Generously illustrated throughout, Drawing on the Dominant Eye offers a remarkable guided tour through art history, psychology, and the creative process; a must-read for anyone looking for a richer understanding of our art, our minds, and ourselves.

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'A future classic of popular science' Mail on Sunday Why do women have a better sense of smell than men? Has the iPhone changed how we touch? Does the Danube really look blue when you're in love? Our senses are at the heart of how we navigate the world. They help us recognise the expressions on a loved one's face, know whether fruit is ripe by its smell, or even sense a storm approaching through a sudden drop in air pressure. It's now believed that we may have as many as fifty-three senses - and we're just beginning to expand our knowledge of this incredibly extensive palette. In Sensational, Ashley Ward embarks on an expedition through the ways we experience the world, marshalling the latest advancements in science to explore the dazzling eyesight of the mantis shrimp, the rich inner lives of krill and the baffling link between canine bowel movements and geomagnetic fields. Unlocking the incredible power of our senses may hold the key to mysteries like why we kiss, how our brain dictates our taste in music and how a dairy-rich diet strained Euro-Japanese relations. Blending biology and cutting-edge neuroscience, Sensational is a mind-bending look at how our brains shape the way we interpret the world.

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'Devil-may-care daring and biting humour . . . Think Rachel Cusk's autofiction on skunk and OxyContin and you're in the right ballpark' The Times 'Enjoyably mischievous and daring' Financial Times 'Ruthless, very funny' New York Times Mona is a Peruvian writer based on a Californian campus, open-eyed and sardonic, a connoisseur of marijuana and prescription pills. In the humanities she has discovered she is something of an anthropological curiosity - a female writer of colour treasured for the flourish of rarefied diversity that reflects so well upon her department. When she is nominated for 'the most important literary award in Europe', Mona sees a chance to escape her sunlit substance abuse and erotic distraction, and leaves for a small village in Sweden. Now she is stuck in the company of her competitors, who arrive from Japan, France, Armenia, Iran and Colombia. The writers do what writers do: exchange flattery, nurse envy and private resentments, stab rivals in the back and go to bed together. But all the while, Mona keeps stumbling across traces of violence on her body, the origins of which she can't - or won't - remember.

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'Curious and unflinching ... deftly executed and cringingly funny' Guardian 'Truly excellent' Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize Whether working in food service or in high-end retail, lit by a laptop in a sex chat or by the camera of an acclaimed film director, or sharing a flat in the city or a holiday rental in Mallorca, the protagonists of the ten stories comprising Paul Dalla Rosa's debut collection navigate the spaces between aspiration and delusion, ambition and aimlessness, the curated profile and the unreliable body. By turns unsparing and tender, Dalla Rosa explores our lives in late-stage Capitalism, where globalisation and its false promises of connectivity leave us further alienated and disenfranchised. Like the legendary Lucia Berlin and his contemporary Ottessa Moshfegh, Dalla Rosa is a masterful observer-and hilarious eviscerator-of our ugly, beautiful attempts at finding meaning in an ugly, beautiful world. 'Voyeuristically addictive, funny, and deceptively simple' Halle Butler, author of The New Me

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Shortlisted for the 2023 Military History Matters Book of the Year Award The only way to truly understand what it was like to fight in the Second World War is to listen to the experiences of those men who were there. And often, there was nowhere more dangerous than on the ground. In Footsloggers, Peter Hart reconstructs one infantry battalion's war in staggering detail. Based on his interviews with members of the 16th Durham Light Infantry, Hart bears witness not only to their comradeship, suffering, dreadful losses and individual tragedies, but also their courage and self-sacrifice as they fought their way across North Africa, Italy and Greece. This is a human look at the inhuman nature of war from the author of At Close Range and Burning Steel.

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'raw as well as wrought ... a novel of spaces and gaps ... like life poured into art' - Anthony Cummins, The Observer 'In both its open-throated exclamations and its concentrated meditations on myriad forms of pain and joy [...] Kit reaches places other books don't.' - Max Porter 'An extraordinary experience ... It is work and voices like Megan's we have to fight for.' - Maxine Peake Megan and Kit met in their early twenties. Their friendship was intense, wild and true. Years later, when Kit becomes desperately unwell, Megan tries to pull her old friend back from the precipice, navigating the difficulties of revisiting a relationship conceived in the great freedom of youth, whilst attempting to remain fully present in the messy beauty of her family life. Kit is a story of the sumptuous complication - and precariousness - of life and relationships. It describes a call to intimacy in a state of emergency. It is a story of one life disrupted as another moves toward its end. Told in a spare, winding prose-poem, with a voice reminiscent of Max Porter, Elizabeth Smart, Kae Tempest and Rebecca Watson, Kit is a splintered, powerful work of empathy, friendship and unconditional love.

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Early in 2007, the author warned of the danger of a meltdown in global markets. In this book, he prescribes a different solution, outlining a plan to deal with a very different economic future, following the financial crisis that ended the longest period of prosperity for some five hundred years.

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'Beautifully written, full of wisdom and wonderful secondary characters. I loved it' Daily Mail 'A glowing, generous novel' Irish Times 'A warm, unsentimental and beautifully-observed book for our times' Lucy Caldwell, author of These Days Grace lives alone in Ballybrady, a little village on the sublimely beautiful east coast of Northern Ireland. She fills her days with swimming, fishing, quilting, and baiting the tourists who arrive from the city with more money than sense. She hasn't left the village since a traumatic stay in London as a young woman at the end of the 1980s. One of the tourists is Evan, taking an enforced holiday from his family and work in Belfast after breaking down after the death of his daughter in infancy. He has come to try to process his grief and make himself desirable again as a husband, a father and a business partner. But he hasn't been there a week until he gets trapped by lockdown. When Grace saves his life in a kayaking accident - if it was an accident - and Evan's troubled son arrives to stay, all three are drawn together in a way that forces a reckoning with their personal traumas and draws them back into society. This is a moving and funny debut novel set in a quirky coastal community you will be desperate to visit after reading. It will appeal to readers of Elizabeth Strout, Maggie O'Farrell and Alice Munro.

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'Thoroughly researched and fascinating' Observer 'Wondrous ... a formidable piece of scholarship' Bookanista In 1939, the Gestapo created a list of names: the Britons whose removal would be the Nazis' first priority in the event of a successful invasion. Who were they? What had they done to provoke Germany? For the first time, the historian Sybil Oldfield uncovers their stories and reveals why the Nazis feared their influence. Those on the hitlist - more than half of them naturalised refugees - were many of Britain's most gifted and humane inhabitants. Among their numbers we find the writers E. M. Forster and Virginia Woolf, humanitarians and religious leaders, scientists and artists, the social reformers Margery Fry and Eleanor Rathbone MP, the artists Jacob Epstein and Oscar Kokoschka. By examining these targets of Nazi hatred, Oldfield not only sheds light on the Gestapo worldview; she also movingly reveals a network of truly exemplary Britons: mavericks, moral visionaries and unsung heroes.

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'Inspiring' GUARDIAN 'Heartbreaking' INDEPENDENT 'I loved it' ADAM KAY 'Beautiful' MATT HAIG 'Luminous' NICCI GERRARD 'Essential reading' MADELEINE BUNTING 'A celebration' CHRISTIE WATSON ----- A Best Book for Summer 2021 in the Times, Guardian, and The i Independent Book of the Month ----- As our population ages, more and more of us find ourselves caring for parents and loved ones - some 8.8 million people in the UK. An invisible army of carers holding families together. Here, Kate Mosse tells her personal story of finding herself as a carer in middle age: first, helping her mother look after her beloved father through Parkinson's, then supporting her mother in widowhood, and finally as 'an extra pair of hands' for her 90-year-old mother-in-law. This is a story about the gentle heroism of our carers, about small everyday acts of tenderness, and finding joy in times of crisis. It's about juggling priorities, mind-numbing repetition, about guilt and powerlessness, about grief, and the solace of nature when we're exhausted or at a loss. It is also about celebrating older people, about learning to live differently - and think differently about ageing. But most of all, it's a story about love. ----- 'Lifts the spirits without pulling punches' IAN RANKIN 'Irresistible' RACHEL JOYCE 'Questions how and why we fetishise independence when the reality of human experience is always interdependence' GUARDIAN, BOOK OF THE DAY 'Heartfelt, funny and at times heartbreaking. 10/10' INDEPENDENT

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In The Cabaret of Plants, Mabey explores the plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty and belief. Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places and a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults and creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10,000), Newton's apple, the African 'vegetable elephant' or boabab - and the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower. Ranging widely across science, art and cultural history, poetry and personal experience, Mabey puts plants centre stage, and reveals a true botanical cabaret, a world of tricksters, shape-shifters and inspired problem-solvers, as well as an enthralled audience of romantics, eccentric amateur scientists and transgressive artists. The Cabaret of Plants celebrates the idea that plants are not simply 'the furniture of the planet', but vital, inventive, individual beings worthy of respect - and that to understand this may be the best way of preserving life together on Earth.

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Weak or failed states - where no government is in control - are the source of many of the world's most serious problems, from poverty, AIDS and drugs to terrorism. What can be done to help? The problem of weak states and the need for state-building has existed for many years, but it has been urgent since September 11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. The formation of proper public institutions, such as an honest police force, uncorrupted courts, functioning schools and medical services and a strong civil service, is fraught with difficulties. We know how to help with resources, people and technology across borders, but state building requires methods that are not easily transported. The ability to create healthy states from nothing has suddenly risen to the top of the world agenda. State building has become a crucial matter of global security. In this hugely important book, Francis Fukuyama explains the concept of state-building and discusses the problems and causes of state weakness and its national and international effects.

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Dublin has many histories: for a thousand years a modest urban settlement on the quiet waters of the Irish Sea, for the last four hundred it has experienced great - and often astonishing - change. Once a fulcrum of English power in Ireland, it was also the location for the 1916 insurrection that began the rapid imperial retreat. That moment provided Joyce with the setting for the greatest modernist novel of the age, Ulysses, capping a cultural heritage which became an economic resource for the brash 'Tiger Town' of the 1990s. David Dickson's magisterial survey of the city's history brings Dublin to life from its medieval incarnation through the glamorous eighteenth century, when it reigned as the 'Naples of the North', through to the millennium. He reassesses 120 years of Anglo-Irish Union, in which Dublin - while economic capital of Ireland - remained, as it does today, a place in which rival creeds and politics struggled for supremacy. Dublin reveals the rich and intriguing story behind the making of a capital city.

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Alan Bennett is the author of Writing Home, The Madness of George III, Talking Heads, The Clothes They Stood Up In and much else besides. Miss Shepherd lived in a Robin Reliant opposite Bennett's house in Camden Town. After a series of attacks on her van, he suggested she move, with her van, to his front drive. Initially reluctant, she agreed - and Bennett landed himself a tenancy that went on for fifteen years. The Lady in the Van is probably Alan Bennett's best-known work of non-fiction, and follows his other little blockbuster The Clothes They Stood Up In.

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'Enormously enjoyable' Sunday Times 'Genial and entertaining' Daily Telegraph 'A joyous celebration of the founding fathers of British youth culture' Alwyn Turner, author of All in it Together and Little Englanders With their draped suits, suede creepers and immaculately greased hair, the Teddy Boys defined a new era for a generation of teenagers raised on a diet of drab clothes, Blitz playgrounds and tinned dinners. From the Edwardian origins of their fashion to the tabloid fears of delinquency, drunkenness and disorder, the story of the Teds throws a fascinating light on a British society that was still reeling from the Second World War. In the 1950s, working-class teenagers found a way of asserting themselves in how they dressed, spoke and socialised on the street. When people saw Teds, they stepped aside. Musician and author Max Décharné traces the rise of the Teds and the shockwave they sent through post-war Britain, from the rise of rock 'n' roll to the Notting Hill race riots. Full of fascinating insight, deftly sketching the milieu of Elvis Presley and Derek Bentley, Billy Fury and Oswald Mosley, Teddy Boys is the story of Britain's first youth counterculture.

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